Staying on Course Believers Must Be Nourished on God’S Word So They Will Know the Truth
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Session 4 > 1 Timothy 4:1-13 Staying on Course Believers must be nourished on God’s Word so they will know the truth. False teachings about the gospel are at times subtle and not so easy to recognize. They contain enough passion and half-truths mixed in so that the errors sound believable. Sometimes, though, false teachings are so blatantly false that no believer should have difficulty spotting them. Years ago on a long-distance trip, I was motoring along the highway and listening to the radio as I drove. This was back in the days before satellite radio and digital dials, so as one station faded out I turned the knob until another station came in clearly. During one stretch of the journey, I began listening to a radio preacher delivering his message of the day. He spent the first ten minutes of the program cajoling listeners to send sacrificial donations to his ministry. Taken aback by the speaker’s brazen fundraising effort, I nevertheless kept listening, assuming that he would soon get to his message from God’s Word. Sadly, the speaker’s main message disappointed as well. Most of it was only loosely connected to the Bible. When the speaker did occasionally quote a Bible text, his interpretation and application of the text were questionable. Yet, it was a blatant claim the speaker made near the end of his message that disturbed me most. He raised an issue that equally devoted Christians have debated for a long time and then gave his conclusion on the matter without any biblical support. To support his view, he simply declared, “Do you know how I know that God agrees with me? Because I am made in the image of God, and it is what I want!” Paul had once warned the believers of Ephesus that false teachers would come into their congregation like wolves sneaking into a flock of sheep (see Acts 20:29). That had occurred just as Paul predicted. Now Paul had sent Timothy to Ephesus to help the believers recognize and deal with those false teachers. The congregation’s future as a church was at stake. 40 Explore the Bible © LifeWay 2019 UNDERSTAND THE CONTEXT 1 TIMOTHY 3:14–4:16 Paul returned to his primary reason for writing—confronting false teachers in the Ephesian church. In chapter two, Paul addressed various aspects of proper Christian behavior. In the first thirteen verses of chapter three, Paul outlined the necessary character qualities of effective church leaders. Paul’s ministry plans may have included his returning to Ephesus in the near future, perhaps to deal directly with the problem of false teachers. In the meantime, however, Paul wanted Timothy to remind the church “how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household” (3:15). The behavior and teachings of the false teachers were particularly troublesome for the church. False teachings about the gospel must have no place among God’s people. The Ephesian believers needed to be able to recognize false teaching and to correct it. The antidote for false teaching was the “mystery of godliness” (3:16). God’s truth and godliness were necessary for the church in Ephesus to maintain their spiritual vitality. Paul illustrated this godliness with a brief hymn of praise that summarized Jesus’ ministry and the church’s proclamation of the gospel. In chapter four, Paul exposed the demonic nature of the doctrine that was being promoted by the false teachers (4:1-6). Paul encouraged Timothy to draw strength from “the words of the faith and the good teaching” that Timothy had followed (4:6) and so to train himself in godliness (4:7). Timothy needed to take advantage of every resource available to him, including the spiritual gift God had given him (4:14-15). Fulfilling the gospel mandate required commitment and practice; thus, Timothy needed to pay close attention to both his conduct and his teaching (4:16). EXPLORE THE TEXT BE AWARE (1 Tim. 4:1-5) VERSES 1-2 Now the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared. Session 4: Staying on Course 41 © LifeWay 2019 Paul once again directed his attention to the false teaching he mentioned previously in the letter (see 1:3-7). The instruction Paul was about to share concerning false teachers in Ephesus came directly from the Holy Spirit (the Spirit explicitly says). Paul did not indicate the means by which the Spirit revealed the warning—whether by Scripture or a prophetic revelation; nevertheless, the content of the Spirit’s message was clear. The phrase in later times (“in the latter times,” KJV) occurs only here in the New Testament, although similar phrases appear in other passages. For example, Paul used the phrase “in the last days” in 2 Timothy 3:1 (compare Heb. 1:2; 1 Pet. 1:20). The phrase refers to the period between Jesus’ ascension and His second coming, also referred to as the church age. The apostle John described this period as a time of spiritual conflict with the enemies of Christ (1 John 2:18), a struggle that is just as relevant for today’s believers as it was for Christians in the first-century. The Holy Spirit revealed to Paul that the church age would inevitably see some believers depart from the faith. In this context, the faith does not refer to a believer’s salvation or relationship with God. Rather, it refers to the foundational doctrinal truths of the gospel—sound gospel teaching. The Greek term rendered depart means “to distance, or separate, oneself from someone or something.” The false teachers in Ephesus had moved away from sound gospel teaching to false doctrines, and their influence in the church was leading other believers to distance themselves from the truth as well. EXPLORE FURTHER Read the article titled “Apostasy” on pages 87–88 in the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Revised and Expanded. What is the difference between an honest questioning of Christian doctrines and departing from the faith? What in your view is the best preventative for apostasy? Rather than focusing on “love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5), the false teachers and their followers were paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons. The phrase deceitful spirits may refer to the evil spirits Paul described in Ephesians 2:2: “the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient.” However, Paul described the false teachers themselves as “deceiving and being deceived” in 2 Timothy 3:13. The phrase teachings of demons makes clear the true nature of these teachers. The battle in which the church was engaged was not a physical battle but one that engaged “the cosmic powers of … darkness” (Eph. 6:12). Some believers might be tempted 42 Explore the Bible © LifeWay 2019 to view false teaching as harmless; Paul did not agree. He contended that any doctrine that distorted or opposed sound gospel teaching was demonic. The demonic teaching was being carried out through the hypocrisy of liars. The claims that the false teachers made about the gospel were lies. The false teachers did not even understand their errors (1 Tim. 1:7). The demands they made (4:3) were just for show. The Greek word translatedseared occurs only here in the New Testament and presents the picture of branding something with a red-hot iron. Paul may have meant that the false teachers were no longer capable of making proper moral decisions. Another possible understanding is that Paul was saying the false teachers’ attitudes and conduct showed the clear markings of the devil. They confessed to belong to Christ; their actions showed otherwise. VERSE 3 They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods that God created to be received with gratitude by those who believe and know the truth. Previously, Paul had pointed out the false teachers’ fascination with myths and genealogies (1:4). Here he pointed out two more aspects of the false teaching: prohibiting marriage and demanding abstinence from eating certain foods. The idea behind such ascetic practices was extreme self-denial meant to gain a higher moral or spiritual state by one’s own effort. Paul condemned a similar practice among the churches in Colossae (Col. 2:16-23). Although Paul had touted the advantages of the single life for gospel ministry in 1 Corinthians 7:32-35, he never forbade marriage. Indeed, he encouraged Christian spouses in Corinth not to abstain from sexual relations except temporarily for the purpose of extended prayer (7:3-5). Paul’s previous instructions in 1 Timothy 3:2,12 that church leaders should be the “husbands of one wife” was an implicit approval of marriage. Later in 1 Timothy, Paul urged young widows to marry again and raise families (5:14). Unlike the false teachers, Paul viewed marriage as a God-given relationship to be enjoyed and honored. The false teachers also demanded abstinence from foods that God created. Paul had raised the issue of abstaining from certain types of food when writing to the church in Rome. The issue for Paul was not the inherent superiority of one diet over another (see Rom. 14:2-4) but rather the commitment to show respect for a weak believer’s faith (14:13-21). God’s purpose in creating edible foods was to provide for the needs of His human creatures.